To qualify for the bronze medal criteria, we made a timely delivery of the Project Wiki, Presentation and Promotion Videos and the Judging Form. The Judging Session is to be held on the Grand Jamboree.
On our Description Page, we provided a detailed description of the SUSPACT project.
On our Attributions Page, we listed and acknowledged all project attributions both from team members and from outside contributors.
Here, we listed our team’s contributions to the iGEM community, including the following:
We blazed the trail for future iGEM teams planning to use microalgae as a platform for more sustainable biopharmaceutical production, and for antibody production in particular, by successfully expressing a single-chain fragment variable of the cetuximab antibody in Chlamydomonas reinhardtii.
Our team provided valuable experimental data for upscaled production volumes of Chlamydomonas, enabling future teams to explore possible industrial applications.
We tested and verified the efficiency and performance of acetone precipitation in comparison to traditional methods using TCA (trichloroacetic acid), streamlining the process and improving the safety of protein precipitation for future users.
As part of our collaboration with other teams, we also provided iGEM team Islamabad with a fundraising and sponsorship guide, which may be useful for various future teams, as it helps them gather monetary and material resources and establish lasting partnerships with sponsors.
For more information, please visit here: Contributions Page
Since we undertook a complicated biomanufacturing operation, SUSPACT had to traverse multiple stages of iterative improvement. In order to succeed, we made use of the classic iGEM Engineering Cycle, consisting of the four key steps Design, Build, Test and Learn, in most areas of the project.
Read more here: Engineering Page
The multifaceted possible impacts of our project were on our minds since day one. Therefore, we have taken measures to obtain insight from different groups, such as students, various members of the public as well as biological experts. Thus, we were able to assess our project from different perspectives, evaluating medical, environmental and social aspects in the process. This way, we could ensure that our main goals were not only attainable, but also desirable for patients, medical systems and society as a whole.
For further reading, please visit the Human Practice side.
Team SUSPACT has excelled in synthetic biology by going above and beyond the walls of the laboratory. In addition to our original parts and engineering success in the lab, we actively engaged in education and outreach. The focus we laid on our platform organism, Chlamydomonas reinhardtii, led to highly adapted genetic parts that would only perform well in the alga.
Thus, we believe that SUSPACT qualifies for the special prizes New Basic Part, Education and Plant Synthetic Biotechnology.
We believe that one of our various original parts stands out particularly. Hence, we decided to select the special prize New Basic Part from this category.
Our humanized Cetuximab single-chain variable fragment (HumcetFv) facilitates the sustainable production of a humanized EGFR-binding antibody fragment in C. reinhardtii. This fragment exhibits reduced immunogenicity in human patients, but unimpaired binding specificity. It also promises reduced production cost and increased efficiency due to the choice of platform organism.
Please read more on our Parts Page.
Our team made a series of efforts to educate various groups: The broader public, young students of multiple generations and, finally, ourselves.
These ventures had some basic goals: To spread awareness of the impact of genetic engineering among the public, to promote the possibilities and benefits of our revolutionary manufacturing approach and to make the field of biotechnology accessible and interesting to new generations of scientists.
In order to achieve these goals, we took part in educational displays at scientific and industry events, held fundraising events, made school visits, conducted multiple workshops and posted an array of educational social media content. Furthermore, our work was featured in scientific and industry magazines as well as newspapers. We also collaborated with two other iGEM teams to share insight and expertise that we gathered along our way to help them with their respective journeys. As a more playful addition to our educational legacy, the team has also designed a scientific card game.
Finally, to self-educate and expand our own skills and knowledge, parts of the team participated in different schooling events and meetups, hosted by the iGEM community and other institutions.
To get an overview of our diverse educational contributions, please visit the Education Page.
Team SUSPACT used Chlamydomonas reinhardtii, a unicellular green alga, as our platform. We successfully designed, transformed and expressed a tailored version of the single-chain fragment variable of the cetuximab antibody in those cells. The protein is not only produced in abundance but also made correctly, as we have proven that it binds to the correct surface protein on colorectal cancer cells.
To achieve this, we needed to design and create organism-specific DNA parts, adapting them to requirements like the algae’s preferred codon usage, secretion signals and post-translational modifications. Thus, the parts we created would only function in our specific model organism.
Our parts may also be of use to other teams in the future, as they provide a starting point from which they could go about building constructs for other varieties of antibodies. Even completely different products could be manufactured by future teams using our parts in the sustainable and efficient Chlamy platform. Furthermore, we gathered valuable experience and insight in different methods of protein purification. Building on this information, future teams may be able to take production yields to new heights.
To read more, please visit the Best Plant Synthetic Biology Page.